Leave the Lights On When You Go
by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
Summary: The weird thing about time is that we experience it linearly and remember it out of order. The angsty rewrite to 5B premire that no one asked for and I wrote anyway.
1. Chapter 1

**I said I wouldn't do it. I said I wouldn't write another one again. But I'm having the WORST writers block on something and I need to keep writing, so I thought I'd give this a go.**

 **Currently it's slated as a one-shot – depending on reaction. The important things to note about this fic:**

 **1\. Takes place at the beginning of 5B**

 **2\. None of the resolution has happened**

 **3\. Takes place when Stiles' dad is in the hospital, Scott's still healing, Kira's in NM, and Theo is trash (which isn't anything new, but worth saying).**

 **4\. Derek is a presence because I miss him dearly.**

 **This fic is going to be structured a bit weird because I love time jumps and I love breaking linear timeline. So tell me what you think!**

Leave the Light on When You Leave

 _By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

The weird thing about time is that we experience it linearly and remember it out of order.

Scott distinctly remembers the hospital – a place he once associated with health and safety. He recalls when he used to play in the hallways, usually with Stiles racing up and down and trying to convince him to do something bad. The lights didn't seem haunting and the walls weren't coated with a thick film of blood that he now associates with everything in Beacon Hills.

He remembers thinking that he is probably the luckiest person on the planet because his mother was so close to the hospital doors that if anything happened to the people he loved, they would live. They would make it out.

So the night that his chest stings with the ghost of Theo's claws and his shirt sticks to him from his own blood, he's shattered in a way that he can't express. Suddenly, that place of warmth and safety is gone. It's now filled with the Sheriff's dying body and a best friend that… well, can't really be called a best friend anymore. Scott replays the weeks leading up to this moment, wishing that there was something outside his own blindness that could've prevented this.

 _"He's not who he says he is."_

 _"I need to figure what Theo's hiding."_

 _"If you guys won't help me figure it out, I'll do it on my own!"_

Stiles' words ring in his head like endless taunting, reminding him over and over that once again, not listening to him is causing the ultimate price to be paid. Except, of course this time, the person paying it was Stiles. Scott was perfectly fine being wrong when it was himself. Broken bones and cut skin meant nothing if it was him. But when it was someone else – someone who stepped in gasoline to light on fire with him – that was something that Scott simply couldn't settle within himself.

If Scott knew this was how it all would end, perhaps he wouldn't have bothered.

 **XXX**

Flash forward to the funeral that never was supposed to happen. Well, the second.

Everyone stands next to a gravestone that will be in the Sheriff's mind whenever he closes his eyes. No one should ever have this happen.

No one should ever have to bury a child.

Right next to his wife, in the spot that he was supposed to take, is a clean, granite headstone. Freshly carved to fit in with the freshly spilt blood that he couldn't prevent from happening.

 _Czeslaw "Stiles" Stilinski_

 _1999-2016_

 _And Eternity in an Hour_

John had to explain the memento to many people when carving it, but it made much more sense when placed next to his wife's, which read _"To Hold Infinite in the Palm of Your Hand."_ He looks to his left where Scott and Melissa stand, Scott glaring at the grave as if it offended him in some way. It may have, John thinks absently. Because it offends him. It offends him to his core.

Scott is having trouble controlling his shift, so he's wearing sunglasses. When they left the McCall house, they flashed red and refused to be any other color. So his mother grabbed a pair of sunglasses and the trio headed out.

 _"Something's wrong with him."_

 _"I'll do it willingly if you run a background check on the Raken's."_

John swallows, wishing he could get the words from his son out of his mind. It doesn't work.

He takes the stand, and then the mic.

 **XXX**

Five minutes before John woke up, Melissa made Stiles leave the hospital.

"Honey, I love you, but you're starting to smell." She says, shaking Stiles' shoulder. She wonders absently if she would have to physically lift him from the chair and drag him outside, but he merely lifts his head.

He's never looked so small.

Melissa's seen a lot of different versions of Stiles. She's seen ecstatic Stiles, conniving Stiles, in trouble Stiles, _about_ to be in trouble Stiles, and possessed evil Stiles. But the one that always gets her – the one she rarely sees and makes the words catch in her throat – is vulnerable Stiles. Because when all his sarcastic barriers and shields against the world come down, his eyes seem impossibly big and his heart impossibly easy to break.

"He could wake up, though," he says and his voice is rusty. Melissa wonders absently if he's eaten or drank anything in the past two days he's been living in the hospital.

"Stiles, listen to me." Melissa crouches down so that she can stare in his impossibly wide eyes and pretends it doesn't make her want to fall apart. "You father is fine. He will wake up when his body is ready. Now, I've bent the rules for you, but I have a feeling they'll be less lenient when you start smelling anymore. Please, take a shower, eat something, and even take a quick nap."

"No." Stiles snaps, but his face softens when he thinks about it further. "I'll take a shower and grab some food though. Do you want me to bring you back anything?"

Melissa smiles, reaching into her purse. "I'd love some of those egg rolls, if you're heading on Tenth St. Get yourself something and bring me back a combo too." She holds out a twenty, but Stiles shakes his head.

"I can't take—"

"Now you shush, mister. I'm getting you food and going to help you out, whether you like it or not. You aren't alone in this. I have your back."

Stiles eyes fill with tears and desperation. "You'd be the only one, then."

If Time hadn't already been plotting against them, perhaps Melissa would've kept her money.

 **XXX**

Three days after the funeral Derek shows up. Someone tells him Beacon Hills has taken a turn for the worst and he finds himself with a hole in his stomach that seems to be taken by a duo of teenage boys who've lodged themselves there. When he gets to the border of the city, he can already sense a change.

Everything by any stretch of the imagination, is the same.

But when Derek drives into the town, everything feels a little emptier.

When he sees Scott, his eyes are definitely emptier.

That's when Derek finds out what happened. Everything. The worst part being is that the city is still unsafe. Everyone's probably going to die.

It isn't until Derek's doing research that he realizes they've made an even more terrible mistake.

"Sheriff?" He calls at three in the morning, trying not to think about how quickly the man answered and how it was probably because he couldn't sleep. "I need you to keep an open mind when I tell you this. We need proof. I swear, we need proof."

Derek can barely understand the _"Of what?!"_ as he stares at the computer screen.

 **XXX**

They don't realize the body is gone until it is.

Melissa pulls the metal door open when the funeral director comes. He has no family, so he'll be buried in a government grave. She wishes she could feel worse for the kid, but a small, vindictive part of her thinks he got what he truly deserved.

But door swings open and there's nothing more than an empty metal sheet.

 **XXX**

John hears about it after it happens.

That makes it worse.

His eyes open, heavy and drugged from whatever pain killers he's on. The world slowly comes into focus. It takes him a few minutes to orient himself and that's when everything comes back.

Theo.

Chimeras.

 _Stiles_.

Stiles was right. There will be no living with him now. After his endless rants about how they were suspicious and how no one should trust Theo, he supposes he owes his son one hell of an apology.

After the nurses check him over, he notices that they nod to Melissa and leave the room.

"Am I dying?" He asks because they look so grave and Melissa's eyes are watering.

Melissa takes a seat next to him, grabbing his hand. He doesn't like this.

This is one of those moment that he knows everything is going to change. It's the same feeling he had when he held the dying teenage girl who pleaded for him to get the hospital. He knew his life was changing.

"John," she starts and the word is filled with weight.

"Melissa," he states, wanting to pull his hand out. "Melissa you're scaring me."

Melissa bites her lip while her chin trembles. "There was an incident."

John wants to laugh – obviously there's an accident because he's _here_ , but he knows that wasn't it. "What incident?" He asks, unsure if he wants to know the answer.

"There was a fire."

John's breath catches and he vaguely remembers the day he sat teenage Derek and Laura Hale down and said those exact words. Unsure of how to say it and somehow cushion the blow. As if you could ever prepare someone for the knowledge that their family was gone.

"Y-Your house, there was a fire." Melissa chokes on the words as if they're poison and John decides they are. Because he has a feeling he knows where this is going, but everything seems loud and shrieking and he needs to hear it for it to be true.

"Where's Stiles?" He asks, his voice going up a few octaves. Because no. _No._

Melissa shakes her head. "John, I'm s-so sorry."

"No," John rips his hand out of Melissa's, fumbling with the tubes and chords and all sorts of useless medical equipment preventing him from standing up and finding his son. _"NO."_

"John, stop—"

"I-It's not true, it can't be true."

There's beeping and his breath isn't coming as easily as it once did.

"John!"

The only thing he could think of as the sedative quickly kicked in is that the last person he hugged was Theo.

 **XXX**

John finds out later Stiles was handcuffed to the radiator. His death is officially counted as a murder. People seem to think it would help, knowing he could catch whoever killed his son.

It doesn't.

 **XXX**

The day they exhume Stiles' grave is a somber one.

Everyone from Scott's pack is there, but no one is standing next to each other. Derek tries to pick up on the pack ties, but they're strained and fractured. He wonders how they all are standing so close to each other with broken ties.

Derek looks at the grave and remembers why.

Some of the dirt from Stiles' grave gets on Claudia Stilinski's and Derek watches the Sheriff pale.

 **XXX**

The last thing Stiles said to Scott was in the hospital.

 _"Where were you?"_

Scott wonders that when he runs up, smelling the smoke from a mile away. He sprints the entire way to the Stilinski house because he just has a feeling. His chest is still healing and the inside is even worse as he feels pack bonds snapping, but he just _knows_. He just knows that the smoke he smells is coming from specific house.

By the time he gets there, the entire house is up in flames.

Taking a breath, Scott goes to sprint in – make sure Stiles is alright (he should be, he's at the hospital, he's always at the hospital) – but someone grabs his shoulder.

"Easy, kid! We've got this."

A firefighter he didn't even notice pulls him back and it takes every ounce of self control to not fight back.

The fire's out in minutes.

The air stings Scott's eyes, but he needs to know. He needs to confirm. Scott holds his phone in his hand, his mother's name before him, preparing to call. To make sure Stiles was in the hospital with his dad. Stiles would never leave his dad.

That's when he hears it.

One of the firefighters off in the distance come out of the house with his shoulders slumped. He takes off his helmet and sighs.

 _"The kid was in there."_

Scott's phone cracks.

 **XXX**

Lydia isn't coherent when Stiles dies, but she feels it.

The Eichen House orderlies come rushing in her room. "How is she crying?" They ask.

No one has the answer.

No one but Lydia.

Screaming can be internal. Sometimes that's the loudest.

 **XXX**

Everyone's at the police station. Time is back to normal. It's no longer tilted and patched.

The Sheriff rubs his eyes. "I just want this over with," he says, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice toward Derek, but unsuccessfully.

Derek doesn't react.

They are messing on the computer, but John already knows the answer. The DNA will not change the fact that his son is dead. No matter what Derek saw, no matter what arguments he shouted.

Scott's at his left. His eyes are still red. John tries to remember the last time he saw Scott without red eyes. He can't.

Parrish is typing away on the computer when the DNA results come in. He presses 'Enter' and the whole station freezes.

"Oh my God," the Sheriff says, breaking the pencil that was in his mouth. "Oh my God."

Because it isn't Stiles who is staring back at them. It was never Stiles in the grave next to Claudia Stilinski. But it is someone they know. John will never forget those cold eyes.

It's Donavan.

 **XXX**

They can't hear it, but Time laughs.

 **A/N:** **So, this is really the end - unless you think it'd be a better series. Let me know you're thoughts!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I said I'd never do this, and yet… here we go. I think it was important to give some more. I don't know if I'll be able to continue** ** _not_** **to work on this. I like it too much.**

 **Let's see how this goes.**

Part Two

 _by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

When facing a traumatic experience, it's normal to experience the world in flashes. Time will jump back and forth in order to more sense of it. Because when you look at the specific linear timeline, everything is scarier. Everything is harder to manage. Everything is…

Too much.

 **XXX**

When he wakes up, the world is on fire.

Stiles coughs, his lungs screaming at him, but the world is nothing but a cloud of thick, black smoke. His eyes burn when he looks around, trying to figure out what brought him here and why the world was falling apart.

Something makes a horrible noise above him – something that tells him that the world may not be literally falling apart, but _something_ is and if he doesn't get out soon, he's probably going to die. That's when he starts to notice it. When he's able to look past the fire and the smoke, he sees his father's tool chest. He sees the parts of the Jeep he had specially ordered. He sees the box of old pictures his father had been keeping down here since his mother died. "Oh god," Stiles chokes when it occurs to him.

He's in his own basement.

Stiles gets onto his forearms to try and get himself up, but it's a feat in itself. He struggles, the world choking him, but he manages. He's been able to stand up in many situations before where he's certain people wouldn't blame him for staying down. So he channels everything he's fought for into standing up.

Standing up is often the hardest.

But once he does, he realizes that in this situation, that isn't entirely true. He takes a step forward, nearly falling back to the ground, but catches himself on a metal table. He cries out, but has to steady himself before letting go, trying to ignore the smell of his own burning flesh.

Stiles tells himself not to look at his hands.

He makes it to the window, his fingers fumbling with the latch. Skin hangs off his fingers and he feels his stomach turn. Every touch of the metal makes him whimper and a part of him thanks God Isaac's not here to hear that.

But he can't do it.

Not because his hands won't work or that his fingers are too sensitive, but because the latch won't budge. Stiles tries again and again, but there isn't even the slightest of movement.

He looks up to see flashing golden eyes and he nearly flails backwards until he sees who owns them.

Theo waves to him from the other side of the glass, a group of figures behind him. Stiles' eyes widen, not even registering the sound of the floor starting to collapse above him. He takes his hands of the metal latch.

They still burn.

 **XXX**

Stiles sits in the waiting room, a place he's all too familiar with, but desperately wishes he could forget.

There are two empty chairs surrounding him and in the dark corners of his mind, someone's telling him to get used to this. Get used to this feeling. This feeling of emptiness and being alone.

Even if his father makes it out of surgery, it doesn't matter – Theo's damage had fractured everything. His own father thinks he's a murderer. Scott kicked him out of the pack. He's not with Malia. Lydia's gone.

Stiles sucks in a breath and tries to ignore how shaky it is.

His hands are still covered in his father's blood, but he can't make himself get up from the chair and wash it off. Instead, it sticks to his skin, pulling and searing in a way that reminds him that this will be stamped on his hands forever.

"Stiles?"

Stiles barely hears the voice, but glances up. Of all people who he expected, the person hesitantly making his way forward was one of the last people he expected.

"Stiles," Liam says quietly, his hands behind his back like he was hiding something. Perhaps he was. Something that couldn't simply be cleaned off. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he responds – too quickly and too wooden to ever be taken for truth.

Liam looks at the empty chairs surrounding either side of Stiles and make a motion to sit in one, but seems to go through a wild range of conflict in this one action. He finally takes his place in one. Their knees touch, but Stiles doesn't move. He's not sure he can.

"How's your dad?"

"Dying." He states.

It's harder to say aloud than he expected. His voice catches on the word, but Liam doesn't say anything about it.

Stiles hears Liam take a breath next to him like he's preparing for something and then the words tumble out, "I'msorrynoonelistenedtoyou." Liam must realize that it sounded completely unintelligible, because he repeats, "I'm sorry no one listened to you."

"Yeah well," he states. "It's nothing new."

He feels Liam stiffen beside him. "You were right."

"I know."

"About me too," Liam chokes. "I tried to kill Scott tonight."

That's what makes Stiles turn his head. His heart stutters over the sentence and feels like it shatters even more than before. He didn't realize that was possible. "You what?" Stiles asks, his voice hollow.

Liam looks at him, tears in his eyes. "I tried to kill him because Hayden died and he did nothing."

Stiles stares at him. He wants to feel anger toward the kid, he wants to throw him out, but instead he just feels tired. "Did you?"

"He's alive."

A strange answer to a strange question.

Stiles turns back to glaring at the emergency doors straight ahead. "I think you should go, Liam."

"But Stiles—"

Stiles doesn't answer. He can't help Liam. He can't help anyone. There's too much blood on his hands at this point. "Scott wouldn't want you with me anyways."

"W-What? Why?"

"Didn't you hear? I'm not pack anymore."

Stiles looks at his father's blood on his hands.

"Maybe I never was."

 **XXX**

He doesn't know this, but it takes almost two days after the fire for Stiles to wake up.

When he does, he wishes he hadn't.

His head lolls to the right and he makes out the white bandage wrapped around his fingers and the silver cuffs around his wrists. It takes him impossibly long to realize he's on a metal table.

For one horrifying moment, he wonders if he's awaken in his own surgery.

"Beautiful that everything's come to this."

Stiles sees Theo approach his side and the nausea rising in his stomach won't settle. He wonders what the consequence would be for vomiting on a Chimera. Instead, he chooses not to say anything.

"What Stiles? No smartass comments this time? Is it because you know that I've out-tricked the trickster?" Theo taunts, walking around his head. "Is it because you know that in the course of a _month_ , I've turned your own father and best friend against you? And now here we are. Your father's dying and Scott's dead. Just admit it, you're slightly impressed."

Stiles' heart leaps in his chest and he hopes Theo is unsure of why. So Theo doesn't know Scott's alive. Well, small victories. If there are such a thing when strapped to a table with a sociopathic chimera.

 _"Admit it!"_ Theo shouts, lunging too close for Stiles' comfort. "You know that if you would willingly join my pack, we would be unstoppable. We would be able to control everything!"

Stiles turns his head so that Theo's out of his eyesight, but he merely walks to the other side of his head.

"And now your house has burned to the ground and everyone thinks you're dead. No one will find you, Stiles, because no one is looking." Theo smirks. "Good thing you made sure I had an extra body lying around."

 **XXX**

Stiles sees Scott once more after he throws him on the ground. Scott isn't as discreet as he always thought he was.

To be honest, he thinks he imagines it. Scott's at the nurses station talking with his mom. The two glance his way and then whip their heads back around when they see him looking.

He thought they were family once.

Funny how things change.

 **XXX**

All that's going through his head is the mantra of _getoutgetoutgetoutgetout_. His brain is whipping faster than he can catch up with and it occurs to him he hasn't taken his Adderall in days. He looks up the stairs where the door is, knowing that it's probably jammed shut, just like the windows.

A bat in the corner of the room catches his eye.

 **XXX**

When he's alone in the room with his father, tubes coming from his body and wrapped around his head, it reminds Stiles of his mother in the worst ways.

He holds his father's hand and closes his eyes, desperately pleading that this is nothing more than a terrible dream. He did that when he was younger and his mother thought he was trying to kill her. It didn't work then.

It didn't work now either.

It's odd, but Stiles thinks back to his conversation with Scott as he tried to fix his Jeep, all those days ago. About how the world had settled and for the first time, the two felt as if it wasn't as hard to keep grounded. He remembers them talking about how it was about to get really good, or…

It was foolish to think their lives would do anything other than take a turn for the worst.

He grabs his father's hand and ignores how cold it is. Too cold for a living human.

Tears crowd his eyes and he can't see anymore. Before he knows it, his chest seizes and his hands start to shake. The world tilts like it always does, making him losing his footing and suddenly the world is no longer safe again.

He tries to catch his breath, but it's to no avail. But it's okay, he tells himself. This panic will pass. They always do at one point.

He used to stop them by himself all the time when his mom died. Stiles supposes absently that he just got used to someone being there. He's got to ignore that feeling.

He's done it alone before. He can do it again.

Stiles would never say it aloud, but that makes it a little harder.

 **XXX**

The bat hits the door with a resounding smash that almost topples him down the stairs. Wood splinters.

The fire rages on.

 **XXX**

Stiles doesn't know when the doctors entered the room, but he knows they're there now. Their presence is a weight that makes it so he can't breathe.

"You could've joined my pack, Stiles." Theo states. "Willingly."

Stiles hears metal scrape next to him and his breath catches. He wriggles under the metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles, his heart hammering in his chest. "What are you going to do?" He asks, unsure if he wants the answer.

"He speaks!" Theo laughs, undeterred by the unimaginable sharpening sounds around him. "I'm going to do what I've been doing since the beginning. I'm going to make you mine. And then I'll get Liam. And Kira. And finally Lydia. Did you really think I was going to give up? Just because you punched me in the face? If you guys don't follow me willingly, I am going to _force you_."

Stiles pulls a little harder, even though he knows it's useless.

He's been forced to do something before.

It did not end well.

 **XXX**

When he enters his house, it feels different. Cold. Empty.

The thing is, Stiles has been alone in his house many times before. This isn't an unusual experience. But this time, he doesn't know if his father is coming home. He doesn't know if his life is changing forever. Instead, he sees the furniture and rooms and they do nothing but taunt him. Remind him that now, he'll lose both his parents.

He already lost his mother and his brother.

What happens when he has nothing left?

 **XXX**

The thing about losing everything that people don't talk about is that it makes you hollow. Empty.

It's human nature to want to fill up those gaps.

Stiles closes his eyes to the scraping. He doesn't need a pack, he tells himself.

He doesn't need anyone.

 **XXX**

The door shatters on the third try and stiles tumbles forward. The entire house is ablaze, but he can get out now. That's all he wanted. He just wanted to get out.

 **XXX**

When he awakes he's no longer with the Doctors.

In fact, he doesn't know where he is.

 **XXX**

Stiles clenches his hands into fists as the Doctors come near him. "No," he chokes, see the syringe in their hands. "No, no, no…"

"This is your own doing, Stiles. If you only listened to me." Theo snaps, a glint in his eyes Stiles has only seen a few times. "Aren't you curious what color your eyes will be? Huh? _Void Stiles?_ "

"No!" Stiles screams.

Then the world explodes.

 **XXX**

Time enjoys the jumps. It makes life a little more interesting.

So it jumps ahead. A far time ahead. Far enough to where Scott has Liam and Kira surrounding him. Derek and Chris Argent. Malia and the Sheriff.

"Where's Stiles?" Scott snarls, his eyes blazing a fierce red. "Where is he?"

Theo smirks. "He's dead, didn't you know?"

Every werewolf can hear his heart stutter.

 _A lie_.

 **XXX**

"Where am I?" Stiles cries, scrambling to his feet. He runs until he reaches the bars, slamming his hands against them. There are still bandages on them. "Hello? Hey! Where am I?"

A figure shifts next to him and Stiles flinches. The figure comes closer to him, reaching an arm through the bars and extending it out. "Dude, finally. A cell neighbor."

Stiles takes a few precautionary steps backwards, but the light from the windows shines on his face to reveal another teenager, tall and broad. "Hey, don't freak out. You're fine right now."

"Right now?" Stiles repeats.

The light pours on his face and Stiles chokes down a gasp. Scars run across his face, down to his chest. He nods solemnly. "For now."

 **XXX**

Scott can hear Time laughing this round. Stiles can't. Then again, he's not allowed to hear anything outside the Circle.

That's Rule #6.

Time wins again.

 **A/N: WHAT AM I DOING. Please let me know your thoughts!**


End file.
